


Half Of The Time We're Gone

by hubblegleeflower



Series: Parallel Lives [2]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Sherlock (TV) RPF
Genre: Age and youth, Armfree Manhammer, Back Alley Sex, Chance Meeting, Freeham, Freelamet, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Public Sex, Timothée's involvement is all off screen, not sure what the ship name should be, one-night stand, sex in lieu of healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2019-11-19 14:57:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18137252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubblegleeflower/pseuds/hubblegleeflower
Summary: It's only been a few weeks since the night when Martin and Timothée found each other. Timothée was sad at the time, and lonely. Martin was, too, but he expects to be. It doesn't fit with Timothée at all, not to Martin's way of thinking. And yeah, what happened that night has made Martin feel quite protective of the luminous young man.Those feelings come bursting to the surface when Martin Freeman and Armie Hammer happen to cross paths at a random theater party in New York. Martin finds he has certain unresolved opinions about the man who was offered Timmy's heart and still let him be alone and unhappy far from home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first fic in this series is based on a ship that precisely nobody asked for. Well, here's another one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is unbeta'd, though I hope that isn't _immediately_ obvious, so if you spot any typos or tense inconsistencies, send me a friendly wave and tell me where it is!

New York. Martin loves and hates it. He loves the music, of course, loves how there’s always a new angle to the scene or a new venue he’s never heard of. He loves the...the grittiness of it, even the seediest parts (that he’s seen at least) still adding to its atmosphere, its very dirt declaring that the city is the way it is, take it or leave it. London’s dirt is just...dirt. Or so it seems to Martin, who is not prepared to admit that he is avoiding London at the moment.

New York doesn’t care who you are. Martin likes that, he does, but it has a tendency to make him feel jaded, cynical. Well, that’s how New Yorkers are, you can’t surprise them, but for Martin it feels like overkill—he’s cynical enough as it is, usually tries to guard against it, actually, with middling degrees of success. Maybe that’s it, he thinks. He likes New York, he just doesn’t like himself when he’s there. His edges are hard enough as it is. It’s not often he gets any softness these days.

Not often, but not...never.

It’s only been a week or two since he said goodbye to Timothée in Rome, and the memory is still fresh enough to give him a warm feeling when he thinks of it, which is often.

“Oh, what is _that_ smile for?”

 _Damn_. Martin has let his mind wander during an interview. Again. It’s a terrible habit, really, but _autopilot_ is usually more than adequate for these press junkets. Right now the young man interviewing him, in a paisley shirt and snug salmon-coloured trousers, his hair dyed an unnatural shade of yellow-blond, is smiling at him—straight white teeth— with a smile that Martin finds distasteful, coy and sidelong, ostentatiously inviting confidences.

 _Not a chance_. Martin quickly replays the last twelve seconds of the interview in his mind. _Ghost Stories_ , okay, not _Cargo._ The question was about his character, the same one he’s already answered six times this week alone. Annoying, but it means he can find his feet without any trouble.

“Well, because he’s not a nice man, my character,” Martin extemporizes.

The interviewer frowns a little, while somehow still smiling. “And you like that?”

“I do, yeah.” That much is true.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not a nice man either,” Martin deadpans. The truth disguised as a joke disguised as the truth. When the interviewer lets out a theatrical peal of contrived laughter, Martin decides he’s not sorry at all.

At last it’s over, and the man thanks Martin and takes his leave. _Is this the last one?_ Martin looks around to see if anyone will come and occupy the chair the flamboyant young man has vacated, but instead he receives the signal that he is done. He is unhooked from his mic and then blessedly ignored. There are a few more steps—he’s got some makeup to wash off, just the powder but it makes him itch a little—but for the most part, he’s done.

It’s a relief. It would be even more of a relief if all he had to do was drag himself back to his hotel room and crash, order room service and lie on the bed in his underwear, maybe flip through the bizarre and astronomical choices available on American television.

He could, he could still do that. He has no particular obligation. He’s got friendly acquaintances in New York, but no friends, really. He’s been told about a party he could go to, small, he was promised, with people connected to the theater scene in New York, but no one will notice if he doesn’t go. He thinks he wouldn’t go if they were film people instead, though he doesn’t examine that thought very closely. By the time he’s out of the shower he has more or less decided he’s going; he’s too twitchy to really relax anyway.

He doesn’t really know anyone who’s going to be there, but he dresses with care as always. Not the tan trousers, he’s overused them a bit these last few weeks, especially in Italy. Not jeans—a New Yorker would wear jeans to this, no problem, but Martin has standards. Pushing aside the hanger with the checked jacket, he finds his dark trousers. Maybe with the waistcoat, and the jacket?

Trying them on, though, and looking in the mirror, he thinks again. _Christ_ , he looks tired. _Craggy_ , he thinks. He completes the Dad look with his thick-rimmed tinted glasses. _It’s a look_. Not the one he’s going for, though. He discards the glasses and, upon consideration, the jacket. Dark trousers, crisp white shirt, dark waistcoat. There it is, he thinks. Now he looks less like someone’s Dad…

... _and more like someone’s Daddy._ He laughs at himself, feels the same warm feeling that almost got him into trouble during his interview. Timmy had called him Daddy, laughing, mocking a little, sort of joking...but sort of not. _That kid_.

The outfit stays.

***

The address he’s been given is for a kind of high-end club or restaurant, booked out for the sake of this party. He gives his name to the doorman, who waves him in, and wanders into the main area. It’s full, but not particularly crowded, and he makes his way to the bar with little difficulty. He keeps his eyes open for familiar faces as he goes.

He feels like a beer, but he knows he’ll drink that fast and want another, so he orders a good scotch instead. Once he’s got his drink, he leans on the bar and scans the room. In the right mood, Martin is good at parties. He’ll size up a likely group, two or three people, and go introduce himself, and they’ll be pleased enough to chat. He hates to trade on his fame, but it comes in handy sometimes.

The room is set out in high tables and booths, but the booths are wide, made for large groups and for visibility—which to Martin’s way of thinking defeats the purpose of a booth—so it’s easy to get a look at the people who are there. He’s spotted a trio of blokes, probably a little older than he is. They’re friends—actual friends, not just trying to be seen together, it’s funny how he can tell that from across the room. Perhaps he’s been with film people too much lately if he finds that authenticity remarkable, or perhaps he’s just been alone too much. (Timothée has it, he reflects, in spite of his rising celebrity. That might have been what attracted Martin to him that night. _Don’t kid yourself. It was the pouty lips and filthy mouth._ Still.)

At any rate, he looks at the men across the room and thinks their easy camaraderie might suit him very well tonight, plus they’re unlikely to think he’s trying to get off with them. He does one more scan around the room—

 _Shit._ As if that wasn’t the last person he expected to see here.

 _Well, it’s not as if he doesn’t catch the eye,_ Martin thinks ruefully, _standing a full head taller than anyone else in the room._ Armie Hammer.

Martin doesn’t know why Hammer is there. Maybe he has a theater project in the works. There’s no reason to speak to him, though. None at all. Their paths have never crossed and they don’t have any friends in common. (Well, except— _shut up._ ) They have no overlapping projects. Martin’s seen some of his films—all right, _one_ of his films—but has nothing particular to say to him. He should stick with his original plan.

But when he looks back at the three men he picked out a moment before, he sees they’ve been joined by two younger women. They all clearly know each other. The group is just as comfortable as it was a minute ago, but Martin doesn’t feel as inclined to join them. Too many wheels; he’ll have to find another target.

His eyes find Hammer again. _Not him_. No, but he’s been curious about the man, he can admit that much. Martin’s seen some pictures, some clips, interviews or red carpets. The pair of them always look so happy to be together, Timmy’s gladness shining like a beacon. Even just in photographs. Martin was able, that one time, to cheer him up, but Hammer sets him alight, _all_ the time. So yeah, Martin has wondered about him.

Wondered, because Timothée has clearly given over his heart to the man, and Martin has seen Timmy’s heart, at least a little, and knows it’s no small gift. Yet Hammer, for whatever reason, lets him be alone, far from home, missing him. Is it possible he just doesn’t know? Is he blind, or just stupid? Or is this, this adoration from the golden boy, just a terrific stroke for his ego? Armie Hammer, never quite the success everyone expects him to be, just happens to catch that glittering, beautiful star on his way up, before Timmy knew what a phenomenon he’d be. Hammer knew right away; oh yeah, he knew, the fucker. He caught him at just the right moment, where Timothée would think it was Hammer doing _him_ the favour. And as long as he keeps him stringing along he can hoist himself up just a notch or two higher in the pecking order, making the most of his proximity to talent while he can.

 _Wow, where did that come from?_ Martin is meticulous about how he speaks about other actors, and how he thinks of them. There are enough catty, judgmental actors out there already, and it’s a tough business. Of course, there are people he dislikes (lots of them), but he doesn’t allow himself to descend into the kind of spiteful backbiting so prevalent in showbusiness. That slice of bitterness about Hammer— _god, even his name sounds fake—_ shit, and that one too—is not like him at all. He doesn’t know when it crept in there. (He thinks he knows why, though.)

“Another?” The bartender breaks into his thoughts, and Martin sees that the scotch he planned on nursing is already empty. He nods, distracted, and takes the opportunity to turn away from the room. He hasn’t been staring, exactly, but if his thoughts are going to go rogue on him he could very well end up scowling at the poor man without even having met him, and Martin flatters himself his social skills are slightly more elevated than that.

He’s brooding now, only one scotch in to the evening, and he lets his eyes rest on the amber reflections in his glass and slide out of focus. He doesn’t know anything at all about Armie Hammer, except that a few weeks ago in another country Timothée Chalamet was unhappy and missing him. _Isn’t it just possible that Hammer was not wholly to blame for that?_ Maybe. Yeah, probably.

That relationship couldn’t help but be complex, god knows. Intense. Even the general public can see that. Martin has only had the barest glimpse of it, from one very specific vantage point. He can’t claim any expertise here. And anyway, Timmy is sweet, but he’s not naive, and he’s definitely not stupid. He got a bead on Martin within the first hour of meeting him. Surely in the several months he spent with Hammer he would have sniffed it out if he wasn’t for real. And if he is for real, and had...whatever he had, with Timothée, then maybe he misses him, too.

Martin fervently hopes so. He’s just talked himself out of hating the man, but it’s all right if he suffers just a little.

“I’ll have one of those.”

Martin’s been sunk deep in his glass but somehow he doesn’t need to look up to know who’s just bellied up to the bar beside him and ordered whatever he’s drinking. The voice, it turns out, is rather distinctive.

“Mr. Freeman,” the voice says. “I think we have a friend in common.”

“Yeah,” Martin responds with a rueful half-smile and another sip of his scotch. “I think we do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from _The Only Living Boy in New York_ by Simon and Garfunkel.
> 
> Series name is a line from Part 4 of Andre Aciman's book, _Call Me By Your Name_ , when Elio and Oliver meet again after 15 years, when they've both moved on, and find they still feel all of what they felt that summer in Italy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they _do_ have a friend in common. The question is, who will be the first to admit what Timothée really means to them? Martin doesn't know Hammer at all; it would be easier, safer, if they just didn't talk about it. It's a bit too raw. A bit too real. But neither Martin nor Hammer is a moderate man.

There’s a little silence. The bartender sets Armie’s drink in front of him, and he nods his thanks. He takes a drink. So does Martin.

 _I wonder if he knows._ Martin and Armie Hammer, side by side at the bar, holding their drinks and not speaking. Now that he’s here, Martin’s curious. He finds he can’t just dismiss him as an arsehole and leave it at that. There’s something to this bloke; Martin wants to know what.

“Talked to him lately?” It’s a safe enough start, since they’re talking about their common “friend”.

“Tim? Yeah, we talk most days.”

“Oh yeah?” _Most days?_ More than a former co-star then. “He in town?”

“Nah. He’s in California. Music festival.”

“Coachella.” Martin’s not completely ignorant.

“Yeah.” They lapse back into silence.

“I saw your film,” Martin tries again, not excessively friendly but cordial enough. “That you did with him. It was good.” Among actors, understated praise means more than superlatives. “That was good work you did.”

“Thanks.” Hammer isn’t wasting words either. He takes a sip of his drink, and Martin wonders if that’s all he’ll get out of him. Then Armie surprises him by adding, “I think it was my best work. I’ve never given more to a job than that.”

“No?” Martin can believe it, actually. He’s glad they’ve skipped the small talk (and the silence). There’s something between them already, something more than being in the same business. “Not all jobs demand it.”

“Nah,” Armie says. “Just never knew there was _that_ to give.”

“I know what you mean.” Martin does. There’s the acting that you do because you’re an actor and it’s your fucking job, and then there’s what comes out when...when it means something. “That’s not something everybody learns.”

“I wouldn’t have, either.” He’s silent for a moment. “Tim was born knowing it, I think.”

“Yeah.” Probably true, Martin thinks. Timothée’s whole heart is in everything he does. Martin resists thinking of all the things he’s seen Timmy do wholeheartedly; the vision of him on his knees is unlikely to be helpful right now.

Armie’s still talking about Timmy’s acting: “Not that he doesn’t also work hard. He does. But he also has...something else.”

Martin hums agreement and wishes his brain would stop finding innuendo in every goddamn thing Armie says. “He’s very talented,” he offers. “As an actor.”

“It’s more than that,” Hammer insists. “I could only dream of doing what he does.” He takes another drink. “But I learned a lot.”

“Guadagnino knows what he’s doing.” Martin hasn’t seen a lot of his work, but what he has has been intelligent and original, with a twist of the odd. He likes that. Also he wants to at least attempt an avenue of conversation that doesn’t revolve around Timothée. It feels safer.

“Yeah,” Armie says, taking the offer. “He brought out the best in us.”

Martin nods. He’s had a lot of good directors, and a few really excellent ones. Somehow, though, it doesn’t feel like the time to bring out any of those stories. They’re still dancing around what they’re both thinking about—Martin is by now fairly certain Armie knows, or suspects, something of what passed between him and Timmy that night. Still dancing around it, but getting closer, for all of Martin’s reluctance. He takes a drink. At this rate, he’ll get through this one too fast as well.

Armie speaks again. “Between Luca and Timmy, it was…” He shakes his head. “It was a master class from Luca. Every day. And from Timmy...I don’t even know how to put it into words.”

“He’s good.” Martin doesn’t quite trust himself to say more. Armie wants to focus on Timmy. With Martin. Which is...awkward. There’s nothing he can reproach him with, no wrong that Hammer has done to Martin. He can even sympathize with the man, on some levels. Apparently, though, Martin still blames him. He’d rather not make that too obvious.

“Good? Yeah, he is. In every sense of the word.” He takes a breath, and misses the ironic twist of Martin’s head. “As an actor, and as a person. So open. So...fearless.”

And wasn’t that exactly what Martin had thought, and marvelled at? For him there was always the, the mistrust of his own emotions, his own desires—or utter denial. The fear and the shame. Maybe for all men his age, or all men like Martin. He’s sure it isn’t just him. Timmy, though; Timmy acts like it’s never touched him at all.

“Well, he’s young.” Martin knows that’s not why, of course he does, but Hammer has just dived straight into this conversation and isn’t letting it go, and Martin can’t picture this ending well. He wants to warn him, wants to suggest that maybe he should take this opportunity to turn back. To talk of things that aren’t as...real.

Hammer doesn’t take the hint. He says, “It’s not just that. I’ve never known anyone like him, ever.”

 _Steady on_. Martin is running out of ways to stay in the shallows. He still finds himself answering, honestly: “Neither have I.”

Something in his tone must give him away, finally. Hammer pauses, seems to catch himself. There’s something veiled in his tone when he says, finally, “He’s a great kid.”

Martin looks up from his drink, then, and takes a deep breath. He’s the one who’s been trying to divert the conversation back to where it’s safe and impersonal, but Hammer said _kid_ because of Martin, and Hammer saying _kid_ seems like a betrayal. Martin knows his efforts to avoid this were half-arsed at best, and he doesn’t care. He is tired of the dance. He says, succinctly, “Bullshit.”

A door slams shut behind Hammer’s eyes. He says, “He is.” His face shows no surprise and his voice is calm.

Martin isn’t having it. “Whatever he is to you,” he says, “It’s sure as hell not _a great kid_.”

“You’ve been spending too much time on the Internet.” His guard is up. His expression is blandly indifferent. “I would think you’d know better than to believe the gossip.”

 _There are still critics who think this man can’t act._ But right now it’s _not fucking necessary._ Hammer brought them this far with his _he’s like no one else I’ve ever met_ and he thinks he’s going to shrug it off now? Forget that Martin was trying to give him an out less than a minute ago; he looks at that fortress of impassivity and wants to knock it down.

“An invention of the tabloids, is it? Hammer, it’s _visible from fucking space._ Who the hell do you think you’re kidding?” Martin catches himself getting louder and takes a calming breath. He turns to study the man next to him.

The look on Armie’s face is...complicated. Hammer’s expressions on-screen are subtle—he doesn’t give things away too easily. He’s been criticized for that, but up close Martin can see the layers upon layers of meaning in the slant of Hammer’s eyes. Defensiveness gives way to guilt and regret in the shift of a few muscles. If Martin weren’t, himself, a creature of microexpressions, he would have no idea anything was going on. It would be heartbreaking if Martin didn’t still think he kind of deserved it.

Trying to keep his voice down, he goes on. “You want to talk about fearlessness, don’t hide behind calling him a kid. I know, okay? I get it. I get what you’re afraid of, and I get what it feels like to watch him _not be afraid_. You don’t have to hide it, okay? Especially not from me.”

It’s out there now, heavily implied anyway. If Hammer didn’t know before, he does now, and Martin’s glad. Hammer is kidding himself about Timmy and he needs to sort that out. _And your’re the one to make him do it, are you?_ Martin rarely manages to lie to himself completely. But this time... _Yes, I am._

From the tenor of Hammer’s silence, Martin knows he’s hit his mark, for all that his face and body betray no reaction whatsoever. When he speaks, his voice is as deceptively neutral as his face.

“I know all that,” he says, evenly. “I just can’t give him what he needs.”

 _You should have tried,_ Martin thinks. Aloud, he says, “I know.” He takes a long swallow of his drink and adds, “That’s why I had to.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Hammer's words and the change in his tone, Martin realizes three things quite quickly: First, that Timothée has not told Hammer quite all of what transpired between them; second, that Hammer might also feel protective of Timmy, given that he has known him for longer than say, the 12 hours Martin spent with him; and third, Martin is in very real danger of getting hit in the face.
> 
> The chances of salvaging this encounter are rapidly dwindling to something near zero. But Martin is like a dog with a bone by now, a little scrappy mongrel dog, and he's not backing down. Something else will have to give.

“You’re a real son of a bitch,” Hammer observes. He’s frowning into his drink. He doesn’t even sound angry.

Martin is inclined to agree with him. He knew his words were a mistake before they were even out of his mouth. Martin doesn’t kiss and tell, ever, yet here he is bragging about Timmy like he’s some sort of _conquest._ He’s being shitty and territorial and Timothée is _not_ a pissing contest, and he can see Armie is already suffering. _So is Timothée,_ he reminds himself.

“I really am,” he says. He struggles to be the adult here. “But it’s—I could see what was going on. What kind of place he was in.”

“He doesn’t hide anything.” There’s a tone creeping into Hammer’s voice. It’s not quite as level as it was, but it’s still too subtle for Martin to label. “So tell me, what kind of place was he in?”

Yeah, there was definitely a change in tone. Martin isn’t sure he likes it. He says, still trying to be fair, “He was lonely, Mr. Hammer. Lost and lonely.” A muscle twitches in Hammer’s jaw and Martin thinks, _anger?_ He can’t be sure. He adds, “He needed a friend.”

“A friend,” Hammer repeats.

“Yeah.” Martin frowns. He’s missing something.

Hammer knocks back what’s left of his drink. “So you fucked him.”

 _Ah, there it is._ Martin realizes three things quite quickly: First, that Timothée has not told Hammer all of what transpired between them; second, that Hammer might also feel protective of Timmy, given that he has known him for longer than say, the 12 hours Martin spent with him; and third, Martin is in very real danger of getting hit in the face.

To hell with being fair. All he can think is _fuck you_ , _you prick, if that’s what you think_ and maybe it’s because they’re both seated at the bar and their size difference is not completely obvious. _It’s still pretty fucking obvious._ But this stand-off is not about physical prowess at all, and Martin isn’t backing down. “It’s none of your goddamn business, but I did _not_ fuck him. I don’t know what he told you, but I bet it wasn’t that.”

“Come off it.” And now Martin can see that he’s _seething_ , he’s not just angry, he’s _furious_. “You think you’re the only one to come sniffing around him in the last twelve months? That mouth, that face, that _talent?_ Every dirty old man in Hollywood is just panting to slither up alongside what Timmy’s got. They all want a piece of him and I mean that literally. He’d be ripped to shreds if—”

Hammer cuts himself off there, but Martin’s heard enough. _You fucker._

“If what?” His voice is low and he lets the venom he feels drip into his words. “If you weren’t looking out for him? If you weren’t there to defend him? To, to, to...protect his honour?” All thoughts of being fair have fled. “Lucky for him he found such a selfless father-figure to help him navigate the big bad world of showbusiness. Someone who only wants what’s best for Timmy, and asks for nothing in return. Well,” Martin adds, “ _Almost_ nothing.”

“You mother _fucker_.” The glass does not shatter when Armie slams it down onto the bar, but it’s a near thing, and it leaves a visible dent in the wood. “You’d better shut your filthy mouth. You have no _idea_ what you’re talking about.”

The barman has looked up at the sound of Armie’s glass, and he’s watching from the other end of the bar. Martin ignores him.

“Do I not?” _What the hell are you doing, Freeman?_   God, he can be such a _terrier_ sometimes. And he’s not stopping now, either. “Look at yourself. The thought of me touching him makes you sick. The thought of me _fucking_ him—”

“ _Shut the fuck up._ ” It isn’t a shout, it’s more of a growl, but it’s loud. The bartender takes a few steps towards them, and when Martin looks towards the door, he sees one of the bouncers watching them keenly.

 _Fuck._ Martin’s done this, he’s goaded Armie, twisted the knife, and yeah, he hit his mark. He can’t even tell himself he did it for Timmy’s sake; Martin thinks of Timmy seeing him act like this, and feels a sudden rush of guilt.

The barman says, “Gentlemen, is there a problem here?”

Martin sees Armie open his mouth and he knows, he _knows_ that whatever Hammer’s about to say is going to get them both into _way_ more trouble than any of this is worth. He doesn’t stop to think but instead cuts across Armie’s words.

“No real problem, mate, just a conversation.” When the barman looks sceptical, Martin adds, “We can have it somewhere else if you’d prefer.”

Armie has gone very still. Martin doesn’t see his face, but the barman, looking from Martin to Armie and back again, says, “I think that’d be best.”

Martin reaches for his card to settle his tab. “I’ll get his as well,” he says, nodding towards Armie. “Least I can do.” Hammer doesn’t thank him, only stays almost worryingly silent, but when Martin rises from the bar and makes his way past the toilets to the back door, Hammer follows.

They emerge down three steps into an alleyway between two lots of buildings, back to back. It’s empty apart from a reeking dumpster, and there are scattered puddles of what may be rainwater. It’s lit by a buzzing yellow security light over the back door of the club. _Dark alley, generic._ Martin thinks vaguely. New York is the birthplace of stereotypes.

He turns to look at Armie, who’s staring at him with yet another unreadable expression on his face. He doesn’t think it’s still anger, but who knows. He’d better start to salvage this.

“Listen—” he starts, but Armie cuts him off.

“I didn’t,” he says, “What you said. I didn’t ask him for anything.” He leans his back on the brick of the building behind him, and his shoulders slump. For a moment, he’s just the size of a regular man, and his hurt shows clearly through his anger. Seeing it, seeing him, Martin is ashamed of himself.

“Neither did I,” Martin assures him, softly. “He was sad, okay? I wasn’t a, a predator. He...he came on to me—yeah, but I told him to fuck off because what the hell would he want with me? I left. He followed me. We talked.”

“Talked?” What is it with this guy and fucking _nuance?_ One word shouldn’t carry so much meaning on its own.

“Yeah, talked.” Martin considers whether to stop there, but somehow he feels like Armie needs the truth. “Until _he_ made it very, very clear that _talking_ was not what he needed.”

“What did you do.” _Ah._ Because now there’s no subtlety at all, he’s just miserable and it’s written across his face and Martin liked it better when he was calling him a son of a bitch.

“Armie,” he says. “I’m not going to tell you that. It’s between Timmy and me. But I think it helped, I do.” He looks down at his feet. _The truth._ “And uh, it helped me, too.”

“Did it?” It’s almost a whisper, and Martin looks up again when he hears it, because there’s something new in Armie’s voice now.

Something new in his face, too. Martin says, “Yeah. I don’t get…” He takes a breath. “There’s not a lot of, of...kindness, um.” _Say it._ “In my life. So. Yeah, it helped.”

The look on Armie’s face shimmers, changes. “Kindness,” he says, tasting the word. “I wonder if that would help me.” And he looks directly at Martin.

His meaning hits Martin like a shockwave. Martin thinks, _god_ , he’s so much older than Timmy but he’s still _so young,_ and what _is_ it about these beautiful children that they end up in Martin’s orbit needing comfort and wanting it in the form of—he checks Armie’s face again and is left with no doubt as to what kind of comfort he wants. He looks away quickly, looks down at the greasy concrete, hands on hips. _Goddamn it._

 _I wonder if that would help me_. Martin doesn’t know. There are bigger forces at work here that Martin doesn’t want to touch, but he can see Armie’s need as clearly as he could see Timothée’s.

 _Doesn’t mean it’s your job._ He doesn’t need this, Martin doesn’t. It’s not like that night in Rome. He and Hammer could share a cigarette and a rueful handshake and part company and Martin wouldn’t feel the loss. He can say no. He can just...not do this. Martin can end this now and no one even needs to lose face.

Thus resolved, he looks up from the ground—and stops.

 _Ah, hell._ Because _fuck_ if Armie Hammer isn’t as beautiful, in his way, as the ethereal Timothée Chalamet. His eyes—they’re perfectly blue. A blue like that could get away with just...being blue, and doing it perfectly; that would have been enough for most men, certainly enough for Hollywood, but no, Hammer had to go and fill his eyes with centuries as well. And Martin knows he’s not making sense, not even in the maddening confines of his own mind, but he’s met Armie’s eyes now and there is every single fucking emotion on his face, anger and defiance and desire and exhaustion and sadness and a searing, desperate plea for all of it to just _stop_. For Martin to make it stop. Because Martin has forced him to confront how he feels and now he’s standing there _feeling_ , and his feelings are as big and raw and powerful as the rest of him. And Martin can help, and maybe _only_ Martin can help, because Martin is the one person Armie doesn’t need to hide this from; he can’t, he _can’t_ let it show to anyone else, not to anyone, not even (especially not) to Timothée.

And he’s beautiful. Martin can’t pretend he’s not, can’t pretend he doesn’t want to know what it’s like to have this massive beauty in his hands, to look up and further up into his perfect, complicated face while he comes apart. He doesn’t even pretend to fight it, not now that he can see him.

He holds Armie’s gaze, steps into his space, and places a hand flat on his chest, keeping him pinned to the wall. Not really pinned, of course; he has at least 30 kilos on Martin and it’s all made of bone and muscle. But he stays there, held in place by Martin’s hand. He looks at the hand, there on the expanse of his chest, as if wondering how it got there. He raises his eyes to Martin’s as if seeking answers.

Martin’s response is to lean a little more of his weight on the hand he had pressed to Armie’s chest. It’s clear what he intends. He says, “You want this?”

Armie, eyes dark, breath coming a little faster, shrugs. “Can’t hurt.”

“Not good enough.” He pushes hard, insistently, against Armie’s sternum, almost hard enough to hurt. “Do you _want_ it?”

A breath, another. For a moment Martin’s sure he’s going to shake this off, come to his senses. But Hammer takes one more breath, and his wide, infinite eyes meet Martin’s. He says, “Yeah.”

“ _Good.”_ Martin growls it. He brings his other hand to the bulge in Armie’s jeans and _squeezes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to say. Thank you to the people who are following this story, all 3 of you. Nice to know I'm not alone in this very odd fantasy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin starts off with big plans for the big man in front of him. His plans end up changing. That...is actually okay.

Martin keeps his grip firm on Armie’s groin for several seconds. He watches the other man’s eyes fall closed, feels his breath as it rushes out of his lungs. Martin lets his hand stretch out along the seam and the flies of Armie’s jeans, pressing against his length. With every breath, the taller man seems to settle, to shift a little down the rough wall he’s leaning on, as though allowing Martin’s hands to take some of his weight, there where they are pressed against his heart and his cock.

The shirt under his hands is soft, a polo shirt of some kind, with two or three buttons below the collar. He wonders distantly about the fashion choice, but the way Hammer fills out his clothes can atone for a multitude of sins. Right now he looks exactly right. Martin can feel Armie’s cock half-hard in his dark jeans, getting harder, and _fuck,_ this is actually really fucking arousing. Right now the only two points of contact between them are Martin’s two hands, chest and groin, but Martin can do a lot with that.

The prick in Martin’s grip is now fully hard, and _Christ_ , it’s huge. But there is no knowing smugness in Armie’s face when Martin looks up to comment. His eyes are closed and his head is back against the bricks and Martin can see that he wants to just...be. Be in Martin’s hands. No, now is not the time for a comment about the size of his cock. Armie’s big; he knows he’s big. Right now, though, he wants to be small.

Martin is good at small. He is also good at taking up space. At _making_ space. He can own this. He flexes his fingers, the ones on Armie’s chest, so that the soft jersey cotton of his shirt twists, just a little. He feels the swell of the ribcage as Armie draws a breath to sigh. Yes, he can do this.

And then Armie shifts his hips and pushes his prick into Martin’s palm and Martin mentally changes _can_ to _really, really wants to._

 _Okay, then_. Time to get started.

Martin eyes up his task, up and further up. Armie’s eyes are still closed.

 _Looks like I need to get your attention._ Martin’s hand has been flat on Armie’s chest all this time, but now he leans into it, throwing in some of the weight of his shoulder as well. If he has to push him around a bit, let it hurt, so be it. He presses with the heel of his hand, hard against Armie’s sternum. _Grind him into the bricks,_ he thinks. He wants Armie to feel that he’s in an alleyway, pushed up hard against a wall, unyielding and gritty. He doesn't question it.

Down at Armie’s groin, Martin claws up his cock while it’s hard and restricted in his jeans, grips, gives a bit of a shake. He curls his palm into the flesh of Armie’s chest, digs into the skin beneath his clothes, drags, _scrapes_ across his breast, as though rending his garments. He catches a nipple under his nails, drawing a sharp gasp, and uses that moment of shock to _twist_ his fingers into the fabric of his shirt and _squeeze_ at the hard bulge under his hand, before letting go and smacking Armie hard on the inside of his legs, left then right, _hard,_ forcing him to spread them wider.

The wider stance brings Armie sliding down the wall, the fabric of his shirt snagging on the rough bricks, and brings his face—not level with Martin’s, but close enough for Martin to get right up in his space and wrap his hand around the back of his neck to pull him down. He is not gentle.

“Keep those apart,” he growls, low in his ear. “And _look at me_.”

When he pulls back to view his handiwork, Armie’s eyes are wide staring, straight at Martin. His breath is coming fast, and his mouth— _Christ._ His mouth is open and his perfect, chiseled lips are wet.

 _Yeah, you feel that, don’t you._ Good.

Martin takes his time, looks him over, appraising. Lets Armie wait, lets him chafe under the scrutiny. Armie’s an actor, and a good one. He loves to be looked at, needs it. Hates being seen, though. Martin can read that in him in bold type...although perhaps he’s only recognizing what he sees every day in the mirror.

The weight of Armie’s cock in his hand is compelling. The heft of it, and the heat. It fills his hand and he squeezes again, and he’s had enough of watching and waiting, because _Christ_. He needs two hands for this, and Armie is still staring mutely and panting and not likely to pull himself off the wall, so Martin—not relinquishing his gaze for a moment—releases his hold on Armie’s chest and grabs onto his jeans with both hands. He twists roughly at the button of his fly and thumbs the tab up so he can grip both sides and tear open the zipper. Armie’s legs are spread so Martin can’t get his jeans down at all, but he can dig into his pants with his cupped palm and tug until the waistband is stretched under his balls and his cock is open to the air, and _fuck._

Yeah, he’s big. Well more than a handful, that’s certain, and Martin wastes no more time in getting his hands around it. He grips, one hand just under the head, the other wrapped around the base, catching hair and bollocks in his fist. Martin is arrested by the way his small hands look, holding his cock, dwarfed by it. The size and weight of it begs for roughness, manhandling, like one would paw and maul at a big rangy dog, in play, and Martins fingers close tightly around it, seizing, grappling. Just this side of cruel.

He likes it, Armie likes it, he must like it rough, big as he is. He must need it rough just to feel it. Martin lets his mouth curl into a sneer and drags his eyes up to Armie’s face. _Yeah, you like that, don’t you?_ Martin opens his mouth to say. To growl at him, to taunt him for his need, for the brutishness that he demands, just by the sheer size and strength of him—

—but then he sees Armie’s face, and all his mocking vanishes.

It’s wrong, it’s all wrong. A few moments ago, Armie Hammer was leaned against the bricks, all loneliness and desperate need, panting and pleading silently, utterly unmasked. Now, though, Armie has plastered on a practiced leer, _turned on, generic,_ a curl of lip and a flash of teeth to hide the flatness of the eyes, and it’s awful. Impersonal, distant, eyes fixed over Martin’s shoulder, his mask back in place, like it was before they started any of this. Only it’s ill fitting now, forced on, with the rigid self-discipline of an actor. Beneath it, blankness. Beneath the blankness, misery.

 _Misery._ Martin blinks, flounders. _What the hell just happened?_ The man was half-gone a second ago, helpless under Martin’s hands, and now…? Martin is giving him what he wanted, he _asked_ for Martin to touch him, he asked— _Oh, shit._

He asked for kindness.

Kindness, not roughness, not cruelty. Martin has done what everyone must do, has seen Armie’s size and believed him impervious, impossible to hurt. Assumed that he had no need for gentleness. But that’s what he’s asked for. _That’s exactly what he fucking asked for._

 _Forget his size._ It’s not the time to think about how much bigger Armie is than Martin. _He’s younger, think about that._ Younger, and more lost, and has learned to hide in ways even Martin can’t fathom. Martin wants to find him where he’s retreated to, draw him out. Restore him.

 _Gonna do all that with just your hand on his dick, Freeman?_ His thinking is wry, sardonic. But at the same time? _Fucking yes._ Touch can be as eloquent as words, as Martin has cause to know.

Just one hand, though. Slowly, he unbends the fingers of his right hand from where they’re clenched around the base of Armie’s prick. With delicate care, he lifts Armie’s balls and gets them free of the stretched elastic, so none of his hair is caught. His left hand is still wrapped around Armie’s shaft, but now he loosens his hold, clasps it between his fingertips. His hold is delicate now, careful, like fingers on the stem of a champagne flute.

“Hey,” he says softly. When Armie doesn’t meet his eye, he brings his right hand up and rests his fingers on the side of Armie’s neck. “Hey.”

Armie looks at him, finally, impassive behind his mask of false arousal. Martin wonders how he’s staying hard. The realization: _This must happen a lot_. That Armie...plays the part. Plays the part that others cast him in. Accepts someone else’s version of intimacy, regardless of his own desires. He doesn't expect to get what he needs.  _He’s used to it._ The thought twists unpleasantly in Martin’s chest, and the thought that he almost didn’t see. _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, but can’t think how to say.

Martin says, “You okay?” _He’s not._ “I don’t have to—”

“Nah, it’s fine.” There is nothing of Armie in the words. His smile is awful. “It’s fine.”

 _Fuck._ Martin wonders if he’s ever going to get him back, now. “I don’t want it to be fine,” he says. _Kindness._ He curls his hand along the side of the taller man’s neck, stroking the skin there with his knuckles. Armie’s eyes flicker at that, just at that little bit of tenderness. So he does it again, and _there_ , a tiny exhalation, brief, but somehow Martin knows it’s real. _Thank god._ He raises himself up on his toes and—hoping he hasn’t misread this—presses a kiss to the side of his face. Armie’s eyes flutter briefly closed. _This_ is what Armie needs. This is what he’s missing. Martin aches, a little.

He pulls away, but not far. Says, again, “I don’t want it to be fine.” He strokes his fingers along the underside of his jaw, and folds his hand close around his naked cock, protective. “I don’t want it to be fine.” Another stroke, another kiss. Another flutter of response from behind these towering battlements. _Come back,_ he thinks. _I’ve got you._ He plants one more kiss right beneath Armie’s ear, where he whispers, “I want it to be good.”

Martin waits, poised by the curve of Armie’s throat. He sees his chest expand with a rush of indrawn breath, deep, and waits out the heartbeats. _Two...three..._ On the fourth beat, his breath releases in a slow sigh, and his head drops forward to rest on Martin’s shoulder.

They breathe there, against the rough brick wall, Armie’s back curved, bowed, and his face hidden, Martin’s hand smooth on his neck and his fingers lightly clasping Armie’s softening prick and it feels...it feels all right. It feels like a truce. _No, not a truce_ , Martin thinks. (It’s not a battle, after all.) No, it feels like...respite. It _is_ respite. Respite, Martin hopes, for both of them.

So as not to shatter their cocoon, he keeps his voice soft. Asks what he needs to know. “Would you...would you like to stop?” _Please be honest_ , he thinks, but can’t think how to say.

He feels the momentary stiffening of Armie’s neck. He thinks he feels the moment where Armie begins to say _no_ , to deny there’s anything wrong, to tell him to keep going. To, to _soldier on_. He thinks he also feels the moment where he lets that go.

“Yes,” he says on an exhale. “Yeah. I do.” It’s the truth; Armie’s telling the truth.

Softly, without pulling away, he slips Armie’s penis back into his underwear and makes him safe. Beyond that, he does not move. He lets them both rest. _Thank you,_ he thinks, but can’t think how to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that took a long time to post! Couldn't get them to do what I was planning to have them do. Turns out they just didn't want to. Once I realized, the chapter went much, much quicker. As to what comes after this...no one is more in the dark than I am on that count. I'm keen to find out, though!
> 
> Don't be too upset about no sex, though. It's, er, coming a little later on.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've stopped; the hasty, rough hand job in the gritty alley was not at all what Armie needed. But it doesn't seem like either of them is quite ready to be alone yet. There's a chance they can talk, like really talk. They wouldn't normally, Martin is sure. But nothing about this situation is normal, so they might, they _might_ be able to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, kids, this chapter...? It's a lot of walking and talking. I'm usually pretty ruthless with excessive dialogue--and I still was, you should see how much I left out--but none of this felt like it could be cut. So it's a long chapter...but it gets us where we need to go.
> 
> Also, Armie's American and Martin is British and it's his POV and in the end I couldn't decide what spellings to use so I just switched it up with no kind of plan or pattern. That's the kind of wild and crazy life I lead.

**Chapter 5**

There’s no pretending it isn’t awkward. Armie’s jeans are still open and Martin’s cock is still hard and Martin’s hand has not moved very far away from where Armie’s dick is still not fully soft inside his briefs. There’s no script for this exact situation, really, that they could follow. _There never is._ Probably. But Martin misread Armie and treated him roughly after promising kindness and he will not blame Armie at all if he wishes Martin a curt goodnight (or not) and gets the hell out. In a minute. In another minute, that’s what he’ll do. It’s shitty, for sure, but it is what it is. Martin can’t stop it now.

He can’t stop it, but he doesn’t have to hurry it along, and as long as Armie wants his neck and his shoulder, he can have them. Martin is not going to be the first to let go; it’s the least he can do.

 _No, the least you could have done is kept your fucking hands to yourself._ He saw Armie was hurting—what on earth made him think a rough toss off up against a wall would be helpful? Armie wanted _Tim_. Who would never touch someone he loved that way, harsh and hard against the bricks and grime. There is always a softness to Tim. That’s what Armie needs. _Obviously._ It should have been so obvious. Martin always thinks he can fix things, despite a lifetime of evidence to the contrary.

Armie’s stirring now, no time for self-recriminations; any second now there’s going to be eye contact, and who knows what next. Martin thinks of his empty hotel room. _Say something._

“You okay?” His voice is only a little rough.

“Me okay,” Armie responds, then gives a bitter laugh. He raises himself up off of Martin’s shoulder and pushes away from the wall. Martin steps back to give him space.

“Look, sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I...that wasn’t…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Armie’s voice is perfectly pitched, hardly flat at all. He even turns his head so that his eyes are visible in the dim light from the single security lamp. So that Martin can see he isn’t hiding anything. He’s a professional, after all.

“Could you—?” Martin presses his lips together. “I, uh, I don’t have the right to expect it, but...could we possibly not...do that?” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “We could still, this could still...it wasn’t what you needed, I know, but we could stay...real. This could stay real.” Martin waits for Armie to feign incomprehension, make an excuse, and leave.

But Armie doesn’t speak right away. He considers Martin, his expression wary. Still guarded, but letting Martin _see_ that he’s guarded, which, from Armie, is a lot. Armie hides what he wants to hide. He is, Martin realizes, waiting. Listening. Ready to hear what Martin will say next, and then decide.

 _So say something,_ he tells himself again. “‘Cause, uh, I don’t know about you, but I’m not particularly keen to head back to my hotel room after this. All I’d do is…”

“Wallow.” There’s the barest flicker of humor in his voice.

Martin looks at him. “Yeah.” A moment passes. “So, uh, if you wanted to get a drink or a bite to eat…”

“Not in there.” Armie jerks his head at the club they’ve just left.

“No, not—they didn’t _quite_ throw us out, but.”

“We didn’t give them the chance.” Again, that tiny hint of a smile in his voice. Martin thinks perhaps this...whatever it is...is still salvageable.

“Somewhere else, then. Or...shit, just even a walk. I don’t—” And Martin does not know at all how he intends to end this sentence. _I don’t want to leave you alone just yet_ is one option. Equally true would be the flip side: _I’m not ready to be alone just yet._

But Armie saves him: “A walk sounds good. I could use a smoke.”

They make their way out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. Martin has a working knowledge of some parts of New York but he's much more familiar with the taxi service than he is with the street map. He got here by giving an address to a cab driver.

He half-turns toward Armie. “Do you know where we are?”

Armie finishes lighting his cigarette and looks around. “Sort of. There's a bit of a walking trail by the water.”

Martin shrugs, and they set out, heading vaguely west.

Martin is fine with silence, usually, but now he doesn’t want it at all. He wants to stay with Armie, yes, but he wants to be _with_ Armie, to actually be...what, _company_. For Armie. He wants to talk, and he wants to talk about their aborted sexual encounter, and what led to it, and, and, and. And he can tell that the wrong approach now will shut Armie up completely.

He asks, offhand, “Do American men hate to talk as much as Brits do?”

Armie huffs a laugh. It’s wry, but it’s real. “American men _love_ to talk, as long as it’s about how impressive we are.”

 _Actually, there’s some truth to that,_ Martin reflects. “And how impressive are you?”

“ _Very_ impressive,” Armie says, deadpan. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Martin peers at him sidelong, trying to decide about the sardonic twist in his tone. Can’t; it’s more than simple sarcasm. But Martin can do irony too. “Yeah,” he says with a sniff. “So am I.”

This gets him a lopsided grin. Armie says, “It’s mainly bullshit.”

 _No kidding,_ Martin thinks. But he says, “What is?”

“All of it. It’s all about...image. Posturing, jockeying for status...shit, I don’t have to tell you. I don’t know—it’s probably different in the UK. Seems friendlier.” He takes a drag on his cigarette, blows it out slowly. “Makes sense, I guess. You were all in the same four or five movies together so…”

“Fuck off,” Martin says, but he’s smiling.

“Which teacher did you play in _Harry Potter_ again?”

“Fuck _off._ ” Martin veers a little and ploughs into him with his shoulder. Armie hardly budges, but he gives an answering, good-natured shove.

Righting himself, Martin says, “It's the same in some ways, but yeah. Everything over here is bigger and more blatant.”

“Including the insincerity.” Armie's cigarette is half gone by now. “I thought I was keeping myself free of it, you know? That I was the one guy in Hollywood who was keeping it real.” His self-mockery has an edge to it. “But it turned out I was just as superficial and pretentious as any of them.”

Martin frowns. “Even I can see that's bollocks,” he says. “You are not.”

“If I'm not _now,_ it's because of Tim.” He pauses for a moment. “Tim and Luca, I guess. No, definitely Luca. But.”

“But Tim is something special.”

“Yeah.”

They’re getting closer to it. It’s late at night and this city isn’t home for either of them, and they’ve crossed a hundred different lines already and so all of this is possible. There’s no one else here and after tonight none of this will be real anymore. So they can talk. They might. It feels possible.

“It’s not just him,” Martin says with certainty.

“What isn’t?”

“You. You had it yourself in the first place. Your...realness” He waits for Armie to agree, to concede the point.

But Armie only takes the last drag of his cigarette, flicks away the butt, and says nothing.

“I mean it.” It’s suddenly very important to Martin that Armie accept this. “There’s a difference between being insincere, like, being fake...there’s a difference between that and, and...and _camouflage._ ” How can he say this? Is Armie even listening? “They’re wolves, okay? You know that, it’s why you’re so protective of Tim. You know what they do to anyone who’s too, too—”

“Too tender.” Armie _is_ listening.

“Yeah. You don’t go out among wolves with your jugular bared. You don’t, what.” _You started it with the wolf metaphor._ “You don’t show them your belly. You protect it.” _Christ, what a struggle_. He tries again. “Your camouflage is incredibly effective, Armie, and you don’t drop it easily, but obviously you only have it in the first place because there’s something underneath it that’s worth protecting.” Finally, a coherent sentence. Martin pushes his luck: “No one just randomly put that, that tenderness into you, just last year, or whatever. It was already there. Luca and Tim just gave you a chance to show it.”

Armie has nothing to say to that, apparently, so they walk without speaking for a while, Martin wonders how long it took Armie to let his walls down, making that film. Did it happen all at once, he wonders, or did he have relapses, moments where he hid himself, protected himself, not out of need, but out of long, long habit? He imagines Timothée, faced with Armie Hammer’s walls—and faced with Armie Hammer’s tenderness, too, which is all too plain once you’re looking for it. Seeing him hide it. _He wouldn’t have stood for that for a minute,_ Martin thinks. He can feel exactly how it would have happened, Timmy seeing all the walls and battlements, and then just casually walking around them all and pushing them over on his way past. And Hammer just as stunned as anyone would be, faced with that smile and that open heart, not even thinking to resist until it was too late.

Martin finds himself saying, “You want to know how I know?” He feels out the words; what he wants to say is only barely forming in his mind.

Armie shrugs, but Martin can see he’s still listening.

“I know because of how Timmy feels about you. He saw as much in you as you saw in him. You’re not just another co-star—he misses you. He thinks about you. He’s…” Is it too much to say? But Martin thinks of how Timmy looked that night in Rome and knows it’s only the truth, so he finishes. “He’s a little lost without you. Without _you_ , specifically. Not just, like, generically lonely. Lost.”

“He’s not fucking lost,” Armie scoffs. “He’s doing just fine.”

“Well, so are you.” Armie laughs again, but Martin rushes on. “Sure, he’s fine. Having a good time. Riding the wave. But he misses you, okay? And that night in Rome? Thinking of you? When your time together had just ended, and he was alone? He sure seemed lost to me.”

They walk in silence for a while. They cross 10th Avenue (Martin finally thinks to check the street signs), following the same road they’ve been on for several blocks. (West 23rd Street—Martin figures he’d better at least try to keep track of where he is.) Armie hasn’t responded to his last comment about Timothée, and Martin is starting to think he isn’t going to. Perhaps he’s lost the thread of the conversation. Or perhaps he’s just lost in his own thoughts.

They get as far as 11th Avenue (hard to get lost in New York, Martin reflects, as long as you can count). It’s late, but there’s still traffic, and they actually have to wait for the light to change before they can cross. Now, though, they leave the street behind them and follow a path under some trees.

Martin decides that Armie isn’t going to answer. Martin has, as usual, neglected to mind his own business, and Hammer is politely declining to share. Hammer has politely declined a lot of what Martin has offered tonight—and fair enough, since Martin has comprehensively failed to offer him anything like what he actually needs. Martin draws a breath to apologize, or something, but before he can say anything, Armie speaks.

“So?” he asks. “Did it help him?”

 _Did what…?_ Oh, right. Timmy, Rome. Feeling lost. Meeting Martin. And...everything that came after. _Good question._

“I think it did,” Martin says, slowly. “He stayed for breakfast.” _Shit, is that too much like telling?_ Too late now. “He, uh, kept me company for a while, until I had to leave for the airport. He had plans for the afternoon, that he was looking forward to.” Martin considers. “He was smiling when he left.”

Armie looks down at the pavement, and he is smiling too. “Yeah, he was when he told me about you, too.”

“Well, thank god for that.” He’s joking, but also not. Then Martin thinks of one more thing he needs to tell Armie Hammer before the moment passes:

“I asked him what on earth he was thinking, picking me of all people to come on to.”

“Yeah?” Armie casts a glance sidelong. “I wondered about that myself. But um.” He forestalls Martin’s good-natured objection by adding, with a smile that is almost shy, “I get it now.”

A glimmer of possibility passes between them. Martin grins back at him. “Cheers,” he says, but he’s not quite done. “But you want to know what he said?”

Armie shrugs, still grinning. “Sure.”

“He said it was because I reminded him of you.” There.

Armie’s smile fades a little, and turns sad. His eyes do that thing where nothing visibly changes but suddenly they’re fathomless. Clearly he’s taken Martin’s meaning. What he takes out of it is his own business.

Martin watches his own feet as they fall, left right left right, on the pavement. _There was pavement in Rome, too_ , he thinks absurdly. And in London, of course. His shoes have been on lots of pavements. Home seems a long way away.

When Armie speaks, his words come haltingly, at first. “I never wanted to, to mess him around. He’s—and I’m…” Pause. Martin watches Armie try to find the truth of what he feels. “I was just lucky to know him, you know? Lucky to work with him, lucky to see his, his, his _everything_. I got to be there next to it just before he got bright enough for everyone else to see.”

“You— _” There’s more to it than that._

But Armie plunges on. “And that’s all I get, okay? It’s going to have to be enough for me.” Again, Martin goes to protest, and again Armie cuts him off. His words come in a rush, now. No more hesitation. “I know what he is, Martin, okay? I know what he is, and I know what I am, and, and _he is not for me._ I know my, my role here. In his life. It’s a walk-on part. And now it’s time to walk off, and be glad for what I got.” He stops to take a breath.

“Is that what he wants?” Martin asks, into the lull.

“He doesn’t _know_ what he wants.” Armie’s voice is rough and bitter. “It’s what he _should_ want.”

They come out of the trees and there’s one more street to cross before they’re into another park, dark and almost deserted. They turn north, and follow the path until they come to a left turn that leads right to the river’s edge. It’s well-lit; they both turn, wordlessly, and head towards the water.

Martin thinks about what Armie has said, about Timmy, and what he wants. He thinks...he thinks Timothée is very different from Armie. Obviously. And from Martin, too. In a way that means neither Martin nor Armie would ever be able to guess, to predict what Timmy might, actually, want. Armie sounds so certain, but he shouldn’t be. Timmy isn’t like...isn’t like anyone.

_I know what he is, and I know what I am, and he is not for me._

Martin knows, _god_ , it’s painful how well Martin knows what Armie means. It’s all too familiar to Martin. The way he unconsciously categorizes certain gifts, certain _joys_ , as being _not for him_. The shame he feels for wanting more than he thinks he’s allowed. The way he knows—Martin and Armie both know—that shame is out of style now, that the official line is that _love is love._ But at the same time there’s the sense, maybe, that this new truth—that you can love whoever you love—doesn’t apply to him. _God,_ Martin thinks again. Because Armie doesn’t even know how much he’s keeping himself from, how much he could have. How much he thinks he’s not allowed.

Martin knows too well that even the more acceptable kind of happiness is not guaranteed to last, and that the chance of even fleeting joy is a thing to reach for, and to grasp. Perhaps Armie doesn’t know that yet.

They’ve come to the railing at the water’s edge. They stop. Martin turns and fetches up against it, his back to the water, looking at Armie head on. He asks, “What about you? What would you want?” Immediately Martin fears the question is too direct and Armie will not give him an answer.

Tt seems Armie’s going to try, though. “Well, yeah, I—no. I don’t know, it’s weird. No, I do know. I do want to be with him, yeah, all the time. And yeah, I—I think this is what you were asking—I, I’m very...sex is important, I’m not going to pretend it’s not. It's part of, I'd want it to be part of our, our, our...But also—and here’s where it gets weird—I also want to see his kids one day. _His_ kids. Not, like, _our_ kids. His kids. Five or ten years from now, or whenever. I want to see him kiss his pregnant wife and then I want to hold his baby when it’s a few hours old, see it grow up, you know? I want them to visit me. It’s—” He stops abruptly.

Martin blinks, and blinks again. “Wow.”

Armie gives a sad half-smile. “Yeah.” As if there’s nothing more to be said.

 _Fuck that,_ Martin thinks. Aloud he says, “You’re a complete idiot. Fucking ask him. Tell him.”

Armie looks at him, startled. “Don’t be stupid. I can’t do that.”

“Bollocks. Of course you can.” Again, Martin needs Armie to see this. “You—He...What the hell are you afraid of? You tell me what you could fucking say to him, honestly, from your heart, that he would ever hold against you. You tell me what he wouldn’t forgive you for. I’ll fucking wait. Because you know, even _I_ know, that there isn’t fucking anything.”

Armie is silent for a long moment. Then he says, in quite a different voice, “There is one thing. He wouldn’t forgive me for lying to him. For, for keeping this from him.”

 _Too right._ Martin says, “It’s your life, Armie. It’s just...this isn’t only _your_ problem. The two of you might be able to...together, I mean. You might be able to come up with something. There might be something. It might not be perfect, or, um, traditional. But you could figure something out.”

Armie leans his elbows on the railing and rests one foot on the bottom rung. At length, he says, “Everything I’ve ever done that has anything to do with Tim...none of it is ever anywhere near my comfort zone.” He gazes out at the water. “But you know...it’s always been good. I trust him. He wouldn’t—he’d be...I could totally do this. I could.” He begins a slow smile, down at the glinting surface of the water, and gives a private little nod. “Thank you.”

He means it. Martin looks away and grins into the middle distance. “Here's to taking risks.”

There's a brief pause. “Yeah.”

There's something in his voice. The possibility that sparked between them before catches now, smoulders. Martin doesn't look at him, but he feels his own grin stretch and curl. It’s not like it was back in the alley. There’s a warmth between them now that wasn’t there before. In the alley, they were strangers. Now...Martin wouldn’t mind another chance there, knowing what he knows.

Armie seems to have the very same idea, and suddenly it's all so... _simple_.

“Come on,” he says, raising himself up off the railing. He holds Martin’s eye and takes a few steps backwards, towards the grassy island under the trees. On his face is only an uncomplicated invitation. The shadows in his eyes have vanished. He smiles. “Let’s give this another try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Without comments I wither away. You wouldn't let that happen, would you?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long night, and several times Martin has expected it to end _very_ unpleasantly. But they've been able to talk, at last, and said...well. Said a few things that needed saying. And Armie seems lighter, less tightly wound. That's a success, Martin thinks. They made an attempt at making this sexual, back in the alley, and it _absolutely didn't work._ And that's okay. They're adults. This just isn't about sex.
> 
> Except Armie, unburdened now, is grinning at him over his shoulder and leading the way to a secluded patch of grass, and all of Martin's good intentions of being _adult_ and _decent_ and _well-behaved_ and _decorous_ evaporate in the heat of Armie's smile. A weight has come off him; he's _happy_. And if Martin has to follow him into the trees and take whatever comes in order to keep him that way, well, it's a price he's willing to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I visited my friend in New York City in June and dragged her and her daughter to the High Line and the Meatpacking District so I could follow the route I was envisioning when writing this. I was there in the afternoon, and not the middle of the night, but I got a good sense. Mostly I needed to know if it would be secluded enough. Well, "enough" is a relative term. Obviously I decided to go with it. Having taken the trouble to go there, though, of course I _had_ to finish this. 
> 
> Still un-beta'd. If you spot typos you can definitely tell me, and I will count it as a favour.

_Let’s give this another try._

Armie turns away, then grins back over his shoulder as he steps over the low barrier into the shadows beneath the trees. Martin watches him; but if he thinks too hard or wonders too long, he'll be wasting time much better spent in the trees with Armie Hammer and there is a zero percent chance he'll ever be in quite this position again, ever, and _fucking get in there, Freeman._

There’s warmth and suggestion and a little bit of mischief in Armie’s smile as he beckons, and no sadness at all. Not just that it’s being hidden, Martin thinks he can tell by now; it’s actually banished. He doesn’t know if he has anything to do with that, but he’ll try not to wreck it if he can help it.

“Yeah, okay,” he says. He pushes up off the railing and steps towards Armie, who turns and leads the way to the grassy space under the trees. 

There is light filtering in through the branches of the trees, new leaves still not providing _that_ much coverage. From outside of their little island, though, they are all but invisible. Martin thinks so, at least. There's no one to see them anyway. 

Armie has to duck his head to get under the branches, but when they pass the trees along the edge, the space opens up and he can stand under the sky. They’re at the edge of some kind of rock garden or sculpture park, and the stony structures there only add to the darkness, and the feeling of shelter. Armie turns to face him.

Martin looks at him, suddenly doubting. How will they touch, and what..what will they do? Martin is, sexually, a very confident man, and has managed to be so under a very wide variety of circumstances over the course of a great many years. Here, though, he finds himself momentarily stymied. Armie wants this now, but it is not clear how to move from the warmth that has blossomed between them to, well, _heat_.

Armie, though, has no such doubts. He takes one look at Martin, and then rounds his back and wraps him tight in his arms. It’s a bear hug; not uncomfortably tight, but certainly engulfing. He’s bent right over, his arms holding tight and he buries his face in Martin’s neck, nuzzling. No, _burrowing,_ and his shoulders are shaking. After a moment, Martin realizes the other man is laughing.

“Martin fucking Freeman,” he says, drawing out every word. “What the hell are you, anyway?”

Armie has his arms around most of Martin’s torso and he’s swinging him from side to side. He hasn’t lifted him off the ground, thank god, but it’s a near thing. His laugh, though muffled, is big and joyful.

“Like, what the fuck?” He’s still talking, still laughing. “You fixed Tim up in Rome and now you’re swooping in here…”

“...swooping?” It’s taking Martin a while to catch up.

“...getting ready to sort me out, and what? Do you just go around like that? Give people what's good for them and then ride off into the sunset? _Who was that masked man?"_

Martin laughs back—he can’t help it—and brings his arms up around Armie’s ribcage, and lets himself be manhandled. 

And that’s what it is, really. Gone is the tight guardedness from before. Now Armie is all in, boisterous and enthusiastic; big, and revelling in it. He’s laughing and hugging and nuzzling and being really quite ridiculous, and Martin lets himself be carried away on it. Perhaps they both feel a little relieved, but Armie looks like a weight has been lifted off him.

Armie looks happy.

 _Happy._ Not haunted, not raging. Happy. So Martin is only too glad to submit to his pawing and his mirth, considering how badly this could have gone. Martin’s resolved to pay attention this time, to make sure Armie’s getting what he needs, and if it means being hefted half off his feet by a man nearly a foot taller than he is, who is simply _rubbing it in_ , well, Martin can live with that. 

But then: “Shit!” _Tickling._ He draws the line at tickling. “You _bastard._ ”

And really, if Armie’s going to play dirty he shouldn’t do it when Martin’s hands are already most of the way up Armie’s ribs in a spot that promises to be very sensitive indeed. He digs his fingers in and is grimly satisfied when Armie _howls_ in protest.

 _"Fuck!_ You—crap!" He wriggles, jerks, unwraps his arms and tries to get them in front of him to fend Martin off, and it's _ridiculous_ , no question. Two men, strangers except for being soft on the same boy, _frolicking_ in the grass in a deserted park in the middle of the night.

It’s all so... _silly_ , and Martin can’t help the grin that spreads over his face as they grapple and scuffle in the dark, laughing. He’s having _fun_ , he realizes suddenly, horsing around and wrestling with this enormous man who turns out to be a rambunctious puppy after all, and he lets the tension of the last hour wash out of him in this preposterous tangle and tussle…

...and doesn’t notice the heat that’s building behind their muffled peals of laughter.

 _Oh._ And then he does. 

Armie seems to notice at the same time. He wraps Martin up again in his arms, close, and fastens his mouth to his collarbone, and Martin sucks in a gasping breath. _There it is._ His breath goes out again on a low, warm growl and he feels Armie smile against his neck. They’ve crossed the line between playfulness and sex and he can’t say at what point, exactly, that happened, and it doesn’t matter at all, because it's lovely. _Fuck_ , it really is just so lovely.

It’s lovely because Armie, now that he’s in it, is in it with his whole enormous self, kissing and mouthing at Martin’s neck and ears and shoulders like they’re the most delicious goddamn thing, chomp and chaw, skin and bone and muscle, like he’s ready to just gobble Martin up. He’s laughing, still, and growling, and completely wrapping himself up in the pleasure of their...Martin can’t think what to call it and doesn’t care. Armie is driving the action, and Martin just lets him, lets him mouth at the flesh at the base of his neck, lets him spread his hands across Martin's back. Lets it happen.

“God, you’re so…” Armie’s bent right over and his voice is muffled in Martin’s shoulder. He _giggles._ “You’re _tiny_.” 

“Oi, piss off!” Martin isn’t sensitive about his height, but there’s a fucking limit. He’s still plastered across the bigger man’s body, though, and isn’t pulling away.

Armie laughs, lifts his head a little. “No, I mean…” His hands stroke over Martin’s back and sides as he searches for his words. “It’s that you...seem a lot bigger until I actually…” He wraps his arms again, all the way around Martin’s body. “You just...Shit, I don’t know. You seem big.”

Martin thinks he knows what Armie is talking about. Timmy said something similar to him that other night. But he doesn’t know how to reply and it’s too serious anyway, so he puts a gruff tone into his voice and says, “I’m plenty big where it counts.”

“Oooh,” Armie rumbles, letting the mood go light again. “I’ll just bet you are, Mister Martin Freeman, you tiny little fucker,” and now his hands and arms and face are roaming _everywhere_ , he’s pressing and gripping and taking Martin’s body in big handfuls and on the same kind of roaring growl he _sinks to his knees,_ and part of Martin says, _whoa, wait_ , because that’s— _intimate_ , his mind supplies, and then he thinks, _of course it’s fucking intimate, you had his cock in your fist less than an hour ago, that might have been a clue that things were going to get intimate—_

But Armie’s not down there to put his mouth on Martin’s cock because even kneeling he’d have to bend uncomfortably to get to the right height. No, it’s to press his face to Martin’s belly, cinched beneath his buttoned waistcoat, and to reach up his back with two big hands, kneading and cradling and kissing, all on the same laughing, rolling growl, hungry, like Martin is something to be scarfed and guzzled, greedily, like Armie wants to spread him out and roll around in him. 

Suddenly that’s what Martin wants to do, too: take this joyful giant up in his two hands and smear him all over himself, dive into Armie’s abundance of...of everything. Of limbs and bone and muscle, of vitality, of heedless enthusiasm. This is a _romp_ , now; Armie has waved his hand and transformed all of the emotional pain and intensity into wrestling and laughter, and undignified belly kisses. 

This is Armie’s own kind of magic, to shape the world around him with the sheer force of his personality. Laughter, by fiat. 

Well, far be it from Martin to resist. He digs his fingers into Armie’s soft hair and pulls him in.

After that, it’s grab and grip and laugh and maul. Armie half-rises and Martin half-falls and they end up on the ground in a heap. They tangle their limbs and rock their bodies and fasten lips and teeth and tongue on whatever skin they come into contact with. 

Martin can feel the pull to open his mouth to Armie’s. They’re kissing ears and faces with abandon, and the tilt of head that would bring their lips together would be so easy, so natural. It would be a wonderful extravagance, really, to plaster his lips and tongue all over and into Armie’s laughing mouth, but Martin feels, somehow, that it’s not for him. He doesn’t do it, and neither does Armie.

Necks, though, and bellies, yes, and whatever they can reach with their hands, and _fucking yes_. Martin revels in the solid, strapping heft of him, gripping shoulders, feeling their strength. He brushes his hands over the muscles of Armie’s chest and flicks his thumbs over his nipples, and thinks _pity I can’t just undress him_. They’re in a public park—that’d be a step too far, if not for Armie, at least for Martin. And it’s not winter but it’s sure not summer yet, and they are dressed for a club, not for carousing in the great outdoors.

He compromises by pulling the hem of the polo shirt out from under Armie’s trousers and getting his hands up under it and then it’s _skin skin skin_ and it feels _so good._ Armie takes his cue from Martin, and soon has his waistcoat half unbuttoned and his dress shirt rucked up underneath, partially untucked, terribly rumpled, and not at all respectable. Face pressed against Armie’s chest, Martin grins with all his teeth, and gives a joyful, savage snarl.

Armie snarls back and things get very gnarled and complicated for a moment, and the next thing Martin knows, they’re on the ground in a rambunctious tangle, with their hands shoved down each other’s open trousers, and how the hell did _that_ happen, and also _fuck yeah._

It feels _good_ , just plain good. They’re gripping and squeezing with no delicacy at all, it’s not fraught, it’s not brooding, it’s just _hot_ , intense but also friendly and open, in a way Martin wouldn’t have thought Armie could be, given the way he was back at the club. Nothing held back, now; he is pure, exuberant pleasure. Wholehearted.

 _This is the Armie that Timmy fell for_ , Martin thinks, with the part of his mind that is _always_ thinking. _Or maybe it’s the way he can go from being fully one way to being fully the other, and still be completely himself. Or maybe in another hour he’ll be completely different again, and **that’s** what Timmy loves. _

Or maybe he should bloody well _pay attention to what’s going on in his pants_ and stop fucking analyzing everything. 

_Armie’s hands._ Armie’s hands are...well, big. His palm covers almost all of Martin’s not-inconsiderable length, and that is different and fucking amazing. _His mouth must he huge as well,_ he thinks, and gets a little sidetracked, but Martin doesn’t really want Armie to suck him off. He wants...he doesn’t want Armie on his knees. Not like that.

 _Undone, though_. Yes, that would be all right.

Martin, with his smaller hands, makes the most of his dexterity. He is not a boastful man, but he knows what he’s good at, and yeah, for a variety of reasons Martin knows his way around a prick. He works the head of Armie’s erection in his fist, spreading the wetness that he finds there, and then strokes and strokes until he feels Armie’s hand slow, and then go still, until the man gives up all pretense of reciprocating and lets out an absolutely _gorgeous_ moan.

_There it is._

There is Armie, and he’s not hiding now, his shutters are gone. He’s got his head thrown back and his mouth is open and panting, and he’s pushing into Martin’s fist simply because it _feels good_ , and he looks...well, fucking hot, obviously, but also, but also…Martin’s throat catches a little on his own unfinished thought.

It’s all right, though. Armie breathes panting breaths into Martin’s shoulder and rounds his back to roll his hips forward, and when he throws his head back, his eyes are heavy-lidded and his mouth is wet and he is beautiful and free and at peace in exactly the way Martin wanted him to be when he began this whole bizarre encounter. 

He keeps his hand firm and steady on Armie’s cock. It’s okay, the warmth that he feels towards the younger man. Martin has always felt that it’s best to be fond of people when their genitals are in your hand, so he doesn’t mind the wave of tenderness that washes through him. _It’s okay._ And it really is, now. He feels like Armie is...is safe, now. He wasn’t sure before. 

He bends and presses a kiss to the side of his face, and gentles his hand, slows his touch and lets himself give this. He moves over Armie’s length in slow, luxurious strokes, sweet and slick, drawing out his pleasure. This is what he wants, for Armie. This is how he wants to touch him.

_This how Timmy would touch him._

The thought comes to Martin, distinctly, in words, and he can feel the truth of it in the careful slide of his hand. This is how Timmy _did_ touch him, maybe. How Timmy _wants_ to touch him, certainly. Timmy would touch Armie as if he were dear and precious and worthy of pleasure. _Which he is_ , Martin thinks fiercely. _He_ _is._

 _This is how I’d touch him if I loved him._

He doesn’t. He knows he doesn’t. Martin has his own ghosts, and his own heartache, and he doesn’t know when, if ever, there will again be someone he loves, to touch like this. And Armie already has enough of his own knots to untangle. There is no danger of either of them mistaking this for love. Here, though, is a body that is his to care for, for a time, and with it a soul that is nearly as battered as Martin’s own, and he can treat it lovingly while it’s his. 

(Timmy would want him to. Would expect him to.)

When Armie stirs himself and starts to move his hand again, it’s almost a shock. 

“Hey,” he says, low in Armie’s ear. “S’ok, you don’t—just let me—”

Armie stiffens a little and hand tightens around Martin. “No,” he says. “No, no, c’mon, I’ve got to, I can’t just—” 

If Martin had more time with Armie, he might insist, he might push Armie to the point where he would, finally, just _take_ it, just accept it. Not try to keep things in some sort of balance, debts and credits of pleasure. It hurts Martin, it rankles, that Armie should be so unused to having his body...cherished in this way. But he’s not going to fix it, not tonight. Someone else will have to do that for him.

 _He needs this._ Right now, he does. Martin has set out to give him what he wants, what he needs, and right now what he needs is, is reciprocity. He needs to stroke Martin’s prick with his huge hands and make him come. _Could be worse._ Martin laughs wryly at the notion that having a riotous orgasm in a New York park at night at the hands of a beautiful man _several_ years his junior might constitute a kindness that he, Martin, was offering to Armie.

...and then Armie gives a clever twist of his hand and Martin gives up thinking altogether. He lets his hand speed up again on Arm’es cock and lets his hips buck into Armie’s fist. When Armie’s body, too, thrusts and seeks and chases its pleasure, he urges him on, voice and hand, _come on, fuck, yeah, that’s it,_ and gives Armie the quick, tight strokes he needs, _christ, fuck, good,_ praises him as he arches and gasps, _fuck, yeah, that’s it,_ and holds him firmly round the shoulders when he shudders and comes.

Then the stretch and bow of his body and his drawn out breaths and his _face, my god, his face_ are all too much for Martin and he shoves Armie’s hand away and jerks himself roughly till he, too, stiffens and comes, muffling his shout in Armie’s shoulder.

The last throes of his orgasm wrack his body and Martin’s ceaseless thoughts go silent for a long, long time.

***

The passage of time between orgasm and the return to awareness is always difficult to gauge. In this case, though, tangled as they are on grass and dirt and—is that a tree root?—and starting to feel the chill, awareness returns rather more quickly than it might have in, say, Martin’s—empty and sterile, but _heated—_ hotel room. 

Once awareness does return, they loosen their grip on each other and share a warm grin, then cast around for something to wipe their hands with. Martin’s glad he didn’t wear a pocket square—no doubt Armie would have tried to enlist it for their purposes, and in this mood Martin would have let him. They make do with grass to scrape off the worst of it. They laugh about it. 

It’s comfortable, it is; it’s afterglow and languour, and it’s lovely...but there’s also a very real sense that they can’t stay under the trees with their cocks out indefinitely. They tidy up as best they can and emerge from the trees, and when they make their way back towards the main road, they’re a little flushed, a little sticky, and much more relaxed than they were an hour ago.

They amble along, side by side, until they reach the traffic light on the corner, where they stop. They share a smile, hesitating.

Martin says, to be saying something, “Where are you staying?”

“Uh.” There’s the briefest pause. “At Tim’s, actually. He left me a key. Said I might as well use it while he’s away.”

Apparently Timmy’s apartment is only five or six blocks uptown from where they are. Armie gestures vaguely north. He’s going to walk, he says. 

And Martin is going to get into a cab, because Martin is not going home with Armie Hammer. Not to Timmy’s apartment, for reasons so obvious he doesn’t bother articulating them even in his head, and not to Martin’s hotel. No; no sooner has he had the thought than he rejects it out of hand. It’s too...small. Well, it’s a good size, but it’s...cheerless. Empty. Not a place for...He glances up at Armie’s face, the vast depths of his eyes, the lingering smile, the radiating charisma. No, the less he sees of Martin’s life, the better. He wants Armie to think of him—if he thinks of him at all—smiling and...generous, maybe, and, and restorative. _Restorative?_ But it’s the right word; he wants to replenish Armie, not diminish him. So it’s time to say good night.

They stand a moment longer, in the glow of a street lamp.

Armie, hands in his pockets and looking bashful again, says, “I think—I know why Timmy was smiling, now.”

Martin opens his mouth to say something sardonic: _I aim to please_ or _That’s just one of the many services we offer_ or something equally witty and deflecting. He stops himself, though. Whatever this was, it’s worth more than that.

“Thanks,” he says instead. “I’m glad we, uh. I’m glad we ran into each other.”

“Me too.” 

There is a pause. Then Martin spots a cab, and Armie hails it. (He’s kind of hard to ignore.) As the car slows to a stop beside them, they share a last, slow smile.

Martin offers his hand. A warm handshake, between friends. (Their palms are only a little sticky by now.) 

A sudden look of apprehension crosses Armie’s face and his hand clenches around Martin’s. “Oh christ,” he says. “What the hell am I going to tell Timmy?”

Martin laughs. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” Then he sobers. “Listen,” he says, gripping Armie’s hand for emphasis. “He’s...well. Everything we said earlier. You can tell him...you can tell him anything. It’s up to you. Okay?” 

Armie meets his gaze but his eyes have gone inscrutable again. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Martin repeats. “But, uh...whatever it is, whatever you tell him…” _How the hell are you going to say this, Freeman?_

“Yeah?” Armie says. “What?”

Martin says, “Just...make sure it’s the truth.”

They share a long look, and then Armie gives a sharp nod. _All right._ He nods back, gives Armie’s hand a final shake, and lets him go. 

Martin nods again with half a smile, lets himself look for one more beat, and then he’s into the cab and leaving him behind. One more glance out the back window, one more wry, crooked smile, and it’s over. He turns in seat and faces the front, and doesn’t look back again.

***

The lights of the city glide over the window of the cab. It’s late; even later, given the time difference, but then Martin’s been on the move pretty steadily now for...he’s not sure. Weeks, anyway. He hasn’t really adjusted to any one time zone. He’ll be in New York for two more nights and then...Martin leans his forehead on the cool glass. He doesn’t remember, right this minute, where he’s going next. He can check in the morning. It doesn’t matter.

His eyes alight at random: a shop front, the stairs to the subway, a tiny park between two busy streets. His thoughts are quiet. Is that odd? He ought to be trying to process, recap, categorize, compartmentalize. He tries, halfheartedly, to get his brain a bit more worked up, but the lassitude in his body has suffused his mind as well. The city slips by.

Against the backdrop of the dark reflections of the glass, images drift in front of Martin’s eyes. Timmy’s impudent smile, his eloquent face, his heavy eyes. The picture he made, that night, long under Martin’s hands, _young,_ and unabashed, openly allowing himself the pleasure and comfort of Martin’s touch. Openly allowing himself to...to _need._

And Armie. His eyes, veiled, hidden, running deep, free with his anger but careful, _so_ careful, with his need. If Timmy knows that softness and pleasure are his due, Armie knows the same about harsh touches and scraps of affection, conditional. Armie knows he has to play a role if he wants to be loved.

Both of them turning up out of nowhere, showing their need to Martin, of all people, and trusting him to...well. _Not to fuck it up_.

No telling how successful he was at that. Several times throughout the evening he came very close to watching it all go down in flames—or rather in ice, in glinting, ice-blue, distant eyes. _Seems to have ended all right, though._ He grins to himself, and scratches a patch of dried come off the back of his hand. 

The cab pulls up in front of Martin’s hotel and he pays the fare, thanks the driver, and steps out onto the sidewalk. 

He thinks...he thinks they might be all right, Armie and Timmy. He thinks they might well find a way, sort themselves out. He thinks they could be happy.

 _Someone might as well be._ As soon as he has the thought, waiting there for the elevator, he immediately shoves it down, down and back, out of his mind. He’s had a good time tonight, met someone interesting, got off, yeah, but also...felt close. It was good. He doesn’t get much of that these days, closeness. Sometimes he wonders cynically if he’s ever had it. Armie risked a lot more than Martin did tonight, _showed_ a lot more than Martin did, than Martin ever does. If only one person is vulnerable, is it still intimacy? 

_It’ll have to do._ Martin’s own fortress is very well-defended indeed, with gates rusted shut with disuse. 

He steps into the lift, presses the button for his floor. Armie and Timmy aren’t like Martin. They’re young enough to bend, here. To yield. Even Armie, as much as he’s clad his heart in armour, stands ready to lower his shield for Timmy—who, for his part, is blithely unguarded, has perhaps never even considered that a heart was something to build walls around. 

Martin, stepping into the lift in the lobby, reminds himself that it doesn’t pay to be too much of a romantic. But he thinks they have a chance. 

He presses his card to the lock sensor, and walks into a room that shows no signs of him apart from his suitcase—still mostly packed—and the toilet bag in the bathroom. Meanwhile, Armie is going to sleep in Timmy’s space, in his bed, even. Martin imagines it cluttered, t-shirts strewn on the floor, a jumble of hair products in the bathroom. Small—for some reason he thinks it’s small, it’s New York after all. One bedroom, tiny kitchen. There’ll be room for Armie, though. He’ll fit.

 _Of course he’ll fucking fit._ Martin has stopped making sense, even in his own head. But he pictures Armie stretching out across Timothée’s unmade bed, making himself at home, as if he belongs there. Martin himself is smaller, but he’d be all wrong, there. Home, for him, is a long way away. 

He flicks on the hall light in the hotel room, and lets the door fall shut behind him. The bed is made, only a little rumpled, with the jacket he’d decided not to wear laid across the bedspread. He shakes it out, hangs it up.

He just wants bed, now. Whatever he has scheduled for tomorrow, he’ll be better off for a few hours’ rest. He won’t get to properly stop for days yet. With a sigh, though, he sets to getting undressed, and makes himself hang and fold and tidy. Wash. Brush teeth. Turn off the hall light, turn on the metal lamp beside the bed. Plug in phone. A seemingly endless parade of mundane tasks that, fortunately, require no thought. 

At last, he pulls back the sheet and settles into the starched, sterile bed. He stolidly doesn’t think about another hotel room, far away, or the lived-in flat uptown that he will never see. _Time to get some sleep._

Martin has a disciplined mind, when it counts. He shuts off the light and closes his eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my lovelies, this is it. Complete!  
> Thank you for coming along with me on this odd journey. It's an odd ship, but I was surprised by just how much depth the dynamic could actually yield. I hope there's been something in this for you. I've certainly appreciated all of your comments and encouragement...and patience!!  
> Hugs and warm wishes to you all. I'd love to know what you think.  
> <3 Glee


End file.
